More patients with drug-coated cardiac stents survive, avoid costly follow-up ...(stents placed in the first year compared...),Health

Date:5/22/2008

stents placed in the first year, compared to 15 percent of patients who received bare-metal stents. Few patients in either arm required bypass surgery in the first year following stent placement, but those who received bare-metal stents were twice as likely to need the procedure, leading to an additional cost savings of $714 per patient treated with drug-coated stents. Overall, researchers found that patients with drug-eluting stents each saved an average of $1,350 worth of follow-up care during the year, which projects a total savings of approximately $100 million dollars among the 72,000 drug-eluting stent patients studied.

The researchers note that future studies should focus on how drug therapies including clopidogrel and cholesterol-reducing statin drugs may play a role in outcomes and costs for both types of stent patients. Since recent evidence shows that clopidogrel therapy -- aimed at reducing the risk of blood clots following stent placement -- is an essential step for reducing late drug-eluting stent complications or failure, Groeneveld theorizes that clinical outcomes for drug-eluting stent patients might be boosted even further when patients follow an appropriate long-term drug regimen.

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Contact: Holly Auer holly.auer@uphs.upenn.edu 215-200-2313 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Source:Eurekalert

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